The Zachary Quinto Metaphor
by xLostInTheSun
Summary: In The Recombination Hypothesis, Sheldon declares that Zachary Quinto can live long and suck it. But then, in The Love Spell Potential, he sees Zachary Quinto a weird, wonderful, unrepeatable event. What could have possibly changed his mind? Possibly a certain neurobiologist and a Valentine's Day spent eating a pizza and watching "one of his beloved Star War Trek things"...


**A/N: It's been bothering me ever since _The Love Spell Potential_ that Sheldon likes Zachary Quinto's Spock because he hated him in _The Recombination Hypothesis_ ("Live long and suck it, Zachary Quinto"). But then someone (I don't remember who, I'm sorry) brought up the fact that the amazing thing about Quinto's Spock is that he embraces his relationship with his love interest, and I thought "Holy crap on a cracker, the symbolism for the Shamy in Sheldon's _Zachary Quinto was a weird, wonderful, unrepeatable event, so stop using him against me_."**

**But I'm stubborn and was still unsatisfied with the lack of continuity, so I had to write the moment when Sheldon's opinion on the new Spock would change. So. There you go.**

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There was a knock on the door, and Amy turned her head towards him, smiling.

"That's probably our pizza," she said, and off she went to open the door. She had been right, and a freckled teenager handed her a pizza box and a bottle of sparkling water. Sheldon watched her as she paid and exchanged a few polite words with the pizza boy, when suddenly, not for the first time that night, he felt something stir somewhere in his chest. He had tried to ignore it, at first, but it was actually starting to get a bit frightening. His father had died from a heart attack, after all, and those things were said to be genetic. Could he really be dying? He'd probably have to go to the doctor the day after. He didn't think Leonard had much work on Fridays. Or maybe he should ask Amy; since he'd made her his In Case of Emergency contact, perhaps she was the best person to rely on for medical problems.

He watched her close the door again and make her way back to the couch where they'd been sitting for the last twenty minutes. After he'd given her the Valentine's Day gift he had found for her – on his own, without Alex's (useless) help – she had hugged him tight for about thirty seconds, both some of the best and of the worst of his life – but then again, wasn't that always the way with Amy? He sometimes both adored and hated her, for she was turning his life upside down without even trying to. Sometimes, he even suspected that she actually had no idea of the position she put him in.

Sheldon was very, very fond of his girlfriend, of that he was a hundred percent sure. The other thing he was absolutely certain of, though, was the fact that he absolutely hated that.

He had spent his life in pursuit of pure knowledge, closing himself to emotions, feelings and other people. The only people he had ever made room for had been his Meemaw, his mother and, to some extent, Leonard. He had always been too intelligent for most people anyway, whether they were that stupid twin sister of his, the bullies he had had to endure even during that year he spent in Germany as a visiting professor, or the blonde waitress across the hall. He had only been focused on science – and comic books and video games – for most of his life, and that had suited him just fine.

But Amy… Amy had changed everything.

And he didn't like it.

It had taken him quite some time to realise how smitten he was, which, thinking back on it, seemed rather stupid – the Zazzles episode had happened only five months into their relationship and he could only imagine how worse it would have been had their argument occurred later. But he had been fully aware of his feelings for a little over a year – Stuart had been the catalyst, of course – and it had been a tiring year. Penny had told him one day that his only problem was that he didn't want to listen to his feelings, quoting French philosopher Blaise Pascal. "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know," she had said, her mouth full of Cantonese rice, and Sheldon had been annoyed at her for three reasons – that she would talk with food in her mouth, that she was one of the millions of people who used that quote without having absolutely any idea of what it actually meant, and, finally, that she had been right.

Sheldon wasn't a stupid man. He knew his strengths, and he also knew his weaknesses, and he had realised over the course of this last year that the border between the two had been blurred by his relationship with Amy. He had always prided himself on his Vulcan lack of emotions, but he realised now that having been so adamant to only be about logic hadn't prepared him well enough for what was to happen with his girlfriend.

"So," she said, putting the pizza on the coffee table before going into the kitchen to get two glasses, two plastic plates and a knife, "which movie would you like to watch tonight?"

Sheldon swallowed hard and shrugged.

"You choose," he said, and Amy laughed softly, sitting back on her spot, just next to his. "This is supposed to be an evening for you, Sheldon," she said. "If I were to actually choose a movie, it would be something like _Atonement_ or _Titanic_ and you'd probably hate it."

"No," he answered, "you can just go over my DVD collection and pick one that you think you'd enjoy more than the others."

"You know, they're all pretty much the same to me, but okay, fine."

She got up again and walked to Sheldon's DVD shelves. He looked at her while she rummaged through his collection, and he felt the weird sensation in his chest again. Suddenly, it occurred to him that this pang might actually not have physical origins at all, and that it was maybe a psychosomatic manifestation of his fondness for Amy. He nearly groaned – he'd never catch a break, would he?

Amy came back a couple of minutes later, DVD of the 2009 _Star Trek _movie in hands. Ah, the irony. She had been right, even though she didn't know that: he hated that movie. He didn't say anything, though, and put the movie on, already saddened to have to sit through the slaughter of his favourite TV show and fictional character of all times.

The only thing on his mind when Spock first appeared on the screen was "live long and suck it Zachary Quinto." He had truly meant that the fifty six other times he had said that, and on that particular occurrence where he had gotten a Quinto lifesize cut out instead of Leonard Nimoy, he had lamented over the fact that he had gotten "the wrong Spock", for Quinto's rendition of his childhood hero was "wrong" in all the meanings of the word.

It was always painful to sit through this movie and he nearly asked Amy if it was okay with her to change to another movie but he then remembered that she had already given up a lot for him that day and it wouldn't be fair to ask her to give up one more thing. So when he felt Amy steal a glance in his direction, he pretended to enjoy himself. It turned out to be worth it, for he saw Amy smile, and inexplicably, he felt himself smile too.

Unfortunately, they soon reached one of the moments he hated the most in this movie and his smile waned as he watched Uhura follow Spock and kiss him full on the mouth. "I'm sorry," she said, and then she repeated it, one, two, three times. Sheldon had followed the plot, as annoying as it might be, and he knew she wasn't apologizing for kissing him, but he still felt like apologies were a feeble offer when she was symbolically murdering Spock.

There was a reason why Spock had always been Sheldon's favourite fictional character: his lack of emotion. Spock had never, ever ruled by his emotions, and this had echoed a lot in Sheldon who had then made the half-Vulcan, half-human his hero. Spock had helped him get through a lot during his less than ideal childhood, and had somehow become his only friend and the reminder that no matter what other people might tell him, it was okay to value logic more than emotions.

But the 2009 movie had thrown that to the wind, as Sheldon was watching Spock actually responding to Uhura's kiss and even seeking her arms for a comforting embrace. And Sheldon hated that. Sheldon hated that because that wasn't the way Spock was supposed to act. A woman couldn't just waltz in and shake Spock's life to its foundations.

That wasn't _right_.

Barely containing a groan, he kept on watching the movie but soon enough, his own woman, the one sitting right next to him, took his hand in hers. He had fleetingly wondered when she would grab his hand like she always did whenever they were watching a movie and had been relieved not to have to go through that so far, but one on-screen kiss had been enough to put this idea back in her head. Sheldon would usually have made a fuss about this, but he reminded himself once more that she had given up enough already, and he merely kept sitting here, Amy's small fingers laced with his.

The stir in his chest was definitely stronger this time around, and that was all the confirmation Sheldon needed: Amy was the reason behind those strange sensations. Sighing a little, he tried to focus on the movie again, although at this point it felt somehow impossible.

At some point, much later into the movie, he felt a weight on his shoulder. Looking to his right, he saw that Amy had literally fallen asleep and that her head had found a comfortable bed on his shoulder. His first reflex was to wake her up, but he decided against it – he hated being woken up and it wasn't fair to do it to her. Instead, he tried to adjust to the feeling of Amy's hair gently caressing his jaw, her soft breath blowing on his shirt. To say it was uncomfortable at first was an understatement. If there was one area in which Sheldon had more problems than emotions, it was physical contact. But what he had said to Leonard and Penny was true: he _was _working on his issues to maybe, one day, be able to get intimate with his girlfriend. So in the end, he tried to relax and found out after a few minutes that it actually wasn't that bad.

And then, something incredible happened: when, in the movie, Spock and Uhura kissed one last time under the amazed stared of Kirk, Sheldon found himself thinking Zachary Quinto really was a good Spock. He nearly jumped out of his skin – not that such a thing was biologically possible – for this thought had come from nowhere and definitely was in a hostile territory.

"No," he thought vehemently. "No, no, no. Quinto is terrible."

But the more he tried to convince himself, the less it worked. The thing about Quinto's Spock embracing his feelings was that it made him more human than Vulcan. And as much as Sheldon enjoyed being the odd one who didn't have any feeling… it still hurt whenever someone called him "Shelbot".

He was a human being, not some machine built by capable hands. He was a human being, even if he sometimes hated it. He was a human being, and that was a wonderful thing. He didn't know why exactly, but having feelings wasn't actually that bad. As he watched Spock and Uhura's embrace, his gaze lingered on his childhood hero. Sure, he seemed different, but paradoxically, he was very much still the same. As if he was simply… happier.

Amy then stirred in her sleep, getting closer if possible to him, and Sheldon realised that… well, she was his Uhura, wasn't she?

And if Spock could do it, then Sheldon would do it too.

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**A/N: Thanks for reading! Any review is greatly appreciated!**


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